Serendipity: Ulcha

8 September 2025, by INEL-Webredaktion

Photo: Claudia Love via unsplash.com

Serendipity is a scientific term that describes accidental, fortunate discoveries. Our research assistants are constantly making discoveries to which this word applies. Here you can read about some of the ethnolinguistic peculiarities of the Ulcha people:

• In Ulcha, the word for the devil (the evil spirit) amban, is also used for the tiger. To specify that it is about a tiger, you can say purə ambani (taiga devil).
• In many languages, the use of forms of address such as aunt and uncle for older people is common, as it is in Ulcha. A linguistic peculiarity in this context is the use of am (father) to address younger males and ən (mother) to address younger females.
• In Ulcha, there is the special verb xuni- to express the idea that you are sick because you have seen a delicious meal without trying it.
• If you say that you want to go hunting in Ulcha, you don't use the verb go. Instead, it is possible to add a special suffix -ŋd(ə), which means ‘to go to do something’, to the verb to hunt bəjči-. For example, Bəjčiŋdisu! (Let's go hunting!).
• If you go into the forest or come out of the forest, you say dujsi toː- (go up into the forest) and dujidʼi əwu- (come down from the forest). However, you always descend to the river wajsi əwu-, and you ascend from the river wajidʼi toː-.

• In everyday life, the Ulcha people use units of measurement that they measure with their knuckles. For example, they measure the size of the mesh in a net or the thickness of the subcutaneous fat layer of a bear with their knuckles.

• The Ultschen have their own units of measurement and special words for them:

• daː distance between the fingertips of both hands stretched out to the side

• ŋala: distance between the fingertips and the right shoulder

• tawal: distance between the end of the thumb and the end of the middle finger

• mowlo~moglo: distance between the middle joint of the bent index finger and the laterally extended end of the thumb.

  Such units were used, for example, to measure animal skins or the height at which a trap had to be set.